Color and Appearance Concepts Explored

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A world without color and shine, wouldn’t this be boring? Decorative coatings can be encountered every day and everywhere: on furniture, building facades, bridges and refrigerators. Even “White Goods” are no longer necessarily white, but exhibit fascinating color looks – from very elegant stainless steel to metallic effects on to colorful, glossy or textured surfaces.

Coatings are fascinating. Not much thicker than a human hair, they combine a variety of functions. Besides the requirement to look perfect under different lighting conditions, they are also expected to retain their good look over a long time and even when being exposed to harsh environments. More…

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Did you ever walk into a glass door? The challenge is to make the product “invisible”, i.e. homogenous without any irregularities. Transparency is more than just the ability to transmit light. The perceived quality of a transparent product is dependent on how “good” we can see the objects behind it. It can appear crystal clear, hazy or unsharp. The human eye can perceive fine variations in sharpness as well as loss of contrast.

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New fashion looks are presented in color shows of pigment manufacturers to cosmetic companies every year. Pigment manufacturers enhance their portfolio and offer alternative pigments to already selected pigments. Now the cosmetic company is faced with the task to objectively evaluate the technical, aesthetic and financial benefits of the presented pigments. Objective measurement of color and appearance attributes will help in the selection and approval process to determine cost efficient alternatives or launch a new look.

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In plastics processing injection molding is the most common method of part manufacturing. The variety of molded parts produced by injection molding extends from smallest components like cell phone buttons up to entire body panels of cars. Plastic moldings are manufactured in production batches of up to several million. In addition to dimensional stability, color and gloss are the decisive quality criteria.

Patchwork might be good for quilts but certainly not for coated industrial goods. As many finished products consist of multiple components which are manufactured by different suppliers and at different locations, uniformity of color and appearance is crucial. Not only the paint batches need to be delivered with consistent quality, but also the production process of the finished product needs to be controlled.

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Our modern high-tech world is no longer imaginable without transparent products. We are so used to their “invisibility” that we only notice them if defects diminish their transparency, and consequently, their final usage. If due to varying quality of the packaging film the same chocolates appear different on the shelf, the nice holiday photos appear hazy on the smart phone, or the motorcycle helmet’s face shield easily gets scratched – then, all of this will affect our quality expectation and can even become a hazardous risk. More…

Objective Evaluation of Orange Peel with wave-scan

December 1, 2016 at 10:00 am EST

What influences our visual perception of appearance? How can the structure spectrum data be used to optimize appearance?

It is a daily challenge to achieve uniform surface appearance and at the same time meet the specifications of different auto OEM makers. Main influencing factors of our visual perception are the observation distance and the ratio of different structure sizes. As orange peel is highly influenced by material as well as processing parameters a good understanding of the measurement results will help you to achieve “Harmony”. Attend the webinar to learn more!

Join our Free BYK-Gardner Webinar:

Dec. 1st at 10:00am (EST)

In only 60 minutes you will learn what influences your visual perception and how to optimize the measurement results:

 How is orange peel and DOI of high gloss surfaces measured?

 How to interpret the structure spectrum?

 What material- and process parameters can influence Orange Peel and DOI?

 Customer specific auto OEM scales: R – CF – Tension – B-value?

 How low gloss can the surface be to get meaningful data with wave-scan?

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Specialty glass manufacturers are developing ballistic resistance windshields for civilian and military vehicles. The windshields consist of various layers of polycarbonate materials that contain adhesives as well as protective layers of film. Various thicknesses are application dependent. Military vehicle protective shields require superior protection due to the increase in ballistic firepower in war zones.

Thickness variations have a direct correlation to the pass-through quality of available light, night or day. BYK-Gardner’s haze-gard i technology is used to measure total light transmittance as well as haze and clarity of various products. The goal is to produce a durable product by maintaining ballistic properties and improving visual attributes.

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Many industries today would like to be able to measure and control the color of stained wood surfaces. Companies that make cabinetry, furniture, building products, pool tables and much more increasingly want to provide better quality control measures around the production of their products and provide a more uniform and consistent color to their customers. They know that those customers increasingly perceive consistent appearance as a measure of quality. More…